The corset

by Laura Abate

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  It was created in the Nineteenth century, and, from being a helmet of constriction, the corset turned into being an instrument of seduction
  
  
  Blessing and curse of every woman, the corset makes its first appearance in 1300, but it was just in 1500 that the real corset, which we associate with the hourglass shape, had been created. At the beginning of the Nineteenth century the woman seemed to be enclosed in a cone, she had hair in bandeaux style with a garish parting at the center of the head, and she wears a corset under the dress. The fashion of that time actually imposed that the woman’s waistline was in shape of a “wasp waist”, to suggest femininity and lightness; but this shape was to be paid with a considerable sacrifice. The corset was as tight as a grip, and really reduced the women’s vitality, by keeping them from breathe adequately, and thus provoking a series of fainting.

• The newspapers of that time frequently denounced the inexplicable deaths of many young noble women, caused by the rib breakings and by the subsequent lung puncture. Thus, in 1881 the “Rational Dress Society” had been created, a movement that powerfully fights against the use of corset, by labeling it as an instrument of constriction and mutilation. Rousseau realized a long time before that this clothing caused some physical insufficiencies, and rightly called it “body-squeezer”. The corset, supported by some very rigid bones, prevented women from fluidly moving, thus making them unsuitable for every type of work. The long laces located on the rear part allowed to properly tightening it, but to do this it was necessary to have a housemaid available for helping. The corset was, again, of exclusive use of bourgeoisie and aristocracy, and marked their social superiority. In the collective imagination, there has always been the scene of the film Gone with the Wind, where Rossella O'Hara is compelled to hold up on the bed while her Mamie tights the corset for her. The woman of the late XIX° century is wrapped in her flair skirts and constricted in her corset, thus has an unnatural and unapproachable allure, and this makes her an irresistible femme fatale. During the same period, the “gibson girls”, created by the American illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, perfectly personified this ideal of woman.

• Camille Clifford, Yvette Guilbert and “La Goulue” are portrayed more than once by the famous Toulouse-Lautrec. Among the illustrators of that time, there were Boldini, Mucha, Paul Helleu and Sem, that offer an effective portrait of the society of that time. 1868 was a turning point year for fashion. The “saddle”, also called “cul de Paris”, launched by Charles Worth, starts being produced. During the last decades of the XIX° century a new “S line” with “snaky sinuous features” starts imposing itself. The waistline got lower, and the corset got longer, by tightening also part of the hips. This new corset pushes breast out and arches the bottom on the rear, thus making the woman to appear like a big S when she is turned sideways. The contorsionist Edith Lambelle, better known as “La Sylphe”, with her supple body is a perfect example of it. With the beginning of the new century, a radical change in the fashion world is not perceived straight away, but a trend towards a more comfortable and modest clothing is quite evident. Mariano Fortuny interprets this trend, by creating the “delphos” and the “peplos”, two very light and essential dresses. With the beginning of the First World War, clothes undergo a modification: corsets are abandoned, and the skirts get shorter. In a word, all the female clothing was inspired to practicalness and sober colours.

• After having been completely abandoned for many decades, the corset comes back, but it is re-interpreted and adapted to the modern lifestyle, thanks to Dior, Vivienne Westwood and Gaultier, that showed that its power of seduction has remained unchanged.